Today’s pet peeve / Today’s fun fact

Today's post has two sections, Today's pet peeve and Today's fun fact. If you don't like one section, maybe you will like the other.

A. Today's pet peeve: Putting the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble.

Today I heard a man on television say -- not once, not twice, but three times -- "tem-POR-al". I wanted to throw a brick through the television screen. The word is pronounced "TEM-por-uhl", people.

During the months leading up to the American presidential election and, in the case of the most recent one, for many months afterward, I heard day after day the phrase "elec-TOR-al college" on radio, television, and in conversations throughout America. Friends, it's the "e-LEC-tor-uhl college".

Sometimes poor spelling and poor reading skills contribute to the problem when people add a syllable where none exists. Take the word "mischievous". It does not, repeat, NOT rhyme with "devious". It is a three-syllable word, not a four-syllable word. It is not pronounced "mis-CHEE-vee-us" because it is not spelled "mischievious". It is spelled "mischievous" (without an extraneous "i") and is pronounced "MIS-chih-vus".

I know language is constantly changing and that the changes happen based on what the majority of speakers say, but wouldn't it be nice if language changes happened based on what informed, educated speakers say?

There used to be standards in dictionaries for what was acceptable. What ever happened to them?

(End of Today's pet peeve)

B. Today's fun fact: Bluetooth is named after an ancient Viking king, Harald Bluetooth.

What follows is adapted from a USA Today article published in February 2021.

Bluetooth is named after an ancient Viking king who unified Denmark and Norway. Harald Bluetooth, son of Gorm the Old, reigned as the king of Denmark and Norway from 958 to 985. He was known for consolidating Jutland and Zealand into Denmark and converting the Danes to Christianity, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Scholars say Harald was nicknamed "Blåtand," meaning blue tooth, because he had a dead tooth that looked blue and dark. One meme that made the rounds claimed that Harald was called Bluetooth because he loved blueberries and ate so many of them that his teeth became permanently stained blue.

In December 1996, Intel's Jim Kardach, who had read a book on Viking history, suggested the name Bluetooth as a codename until the marketing group could come up with a formal technology name.

"When asked about the name Bluetooth, I explained that Bluetooth was borrowed from the 10th century, second King of Denmark, King Harald Bluetooth, who was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link," Kardach wrote in a 2008 column for the EE Times.

He added that he created a PowerPoint foil with a version of the Runic stone where Harald held a cellphone in one hand and a notebook in the other hand.

The codename Bluetooth was inserted into contracts as a placeholder until an official name was finalized. When other names that were being considered did not work out, Bluetooth remained.

The ubiquitous logo symbolizes "a bind rune merging the Younger Futhark runes (Hagall) (ᚼ) and (Bjarkan) (ᛒ), Harald’s initials," according to Bluetooth's website.

The claim that Bluetooth got its name from Viking King Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson is therefore TRUE, based on our research. An Intel representative suggested the name based on the reasoning that Harald united Scandinavia and Bluetooth wanted to unite mobile PCs and cellphones to communicate. But Harald reportedly got his "Bluetooth" nickname from a dark, dead tooth, not from eating an extreme amount of blueberries, as claimed in one meme.

Just for fun, here is the Bluetooth logo created out of blueberries.

(End of Today's fun fact)

P.S. -- When I was working for IBM in South Florida back in the 1970s, a new computer system was being developed that eventually would be marketed as System/7. Because a certain kind of tropical tree, the banyan, grew in South Florida, the codename Banyan was used throughout the development of the project. One of my responsibilities as a member of the Technical Publications Department was to produce a manual that would be called "User's Guide to System/7". I wanted to call it "The Banyan Companion" during the development phase but my supervisor didn't have a sense of humor.